It’s happened to all of us—one minute we are innocently searching the web for a new set of bed sheets or a winter coat and the next minute, our social media feeds becomeinundated with advertisementsfor the exact items we just got done searching.

Platforms like Instagram™, Facebook™ and Twitter™ can feed us content they think we want to see based on the history of our clicks, and even search engines like Google™ can customize our results according to what they think we want to see or read. These days, there is an algorithm for just about everything.

Welcome to the world powered by big data. If it feels like someone is watching, it’s because in some ways, they are. Every click, swipe, check-in and post (among others) has the potential to be stored, cataloged and analyzed. So how do you define “big data”? Analytics software companySASdescribes it as, “The large volume of data–both structured and unstructured–that inundates a business on a day-to-day basis [and] can be analyzed for insights that lead to better decisions and strategic business moves.”

现在，我们具有计算能力和存储功能，可以使用大量的信息。那么，大数据和分析的支持正在探索哪些令人兴奋的功能？继续阅读以了解有关这种新技术边界的一些最令人兴奋和最令人惊讶的潜在功能的更多信息。

9 Potentially game-changing big data capabilities

1.预测畅销书

Book publishers are always looking for their next “white whale” of a best-seller—and big data may be able to help.The Atlanticrecently profiled authors of new books where researchers analyzed thousands of novels over the years and found algorithms and analytics have the power to predict bestsellers with about an 80 percent success rate: “The algorithm’s claimed efficacy is based on a track record ‘predicting’New York Timesbest sellers when applied retrospectively to novels from the past 30 years.”

尽管这与完全由算法撰写的畅销书籍相去甚远，但有一天出版公司可以拥有一家软件，至少表明小说是否会成为商业上的成功，这一事实具有巨大的影响。

2.减少碳足迹

Shipping giant UPS recently implemented a software called ORION in its fleet of delivery vehicles, which allows them to use traffic, customer and driving data during deliveries to streamline shipment routes and ultimately reduce emissions. Since its implementation, ORION has been successful in that mission—UPS reports每年节省5500万加仑的燃料和减少100,000吨的CO²，同时为公司节省了数百万美元。

3.通过猜测您喜欢什么来推动销售

Have you ever been surprised by the accuracy of the “We think you would like …” sections on the websites of online retailers like Amazon? You have big data to thank for much of that. Amazon and other online retailers pull data regularly from millions of customer purchases to analyze trends and serve up products that fit your customer profile.

4. Improving your favorite sports team

击球平均值，抢断，射门得分，铲球（田径世界）充满了统计和信息 - 这使它们成为那些希望做出数据驱动分析和决策的人的主要操场。各种条纹的运动队are going all-in数据收集和分析to hone and improve their performance. For example, athletes fromseveral college football programs使用可穿戴技术在练习时间内跟踪劳动和工作量之类的东西。该数据用于在力量和调节会议期间告知和修改其工作量，这都是维持峰值性能的名称。

5. Preventing epidemics

Big data can even protect our healthon an individual and global level. Cell phone and social media data can help disease researchers map the path of outbreaks and identify “hot spots” of disease-related activity. Additionally, it allows researchers to run large-scale simulations of how epidemics would spread—allowing researchers to improve containment strategies.

6. Driving election turn-out

In politics, the days of campaigns blanketing airwaves with commercials targeted only by geographic area are numbered. That’s not to say you won’t see your fair share of political advertising—it’s just that big data has made an outsized impact on how political campaigns conduct their business. Voters volunteer a surprising amount of information about their concerns and the issues that matter most of them, which gives political candidates the ability to precisely tailor their messaging. Whether this is a good thing or not是有争议的，但是很明显，大数据将继续对未来的竞选方式产生巨大影响。

7. Improving traffic

Traffic jams rank up there with toothaches in annoyance, but the good news isbig data analysis may be able to helpminimize the time we spend sitting in traffic. By monitoring the routes of drivers and traffic patterns, city planners can better identify traffic choke points, plan new or modify existing mass transit routes and tweak traffic lighting timing—all nice things to daydream about the next time you’re stuck at a ridiculously long traffic light with no cross traffic in sight.

8. Making it easier to build environmentally-friendly structures

Google™, with its enormous computing and data power, has launched a tool,门廊, which is designed to help architects and builders source materials that meet environmental standards. This massive database of building materials makes it easier for anyone involved in a construction project to research individual materials and make informed choices when trying to build as sustainably as possible.

9. Removing forced labor from global supply chains

对于许多企业而言，它们的供应链可能是重要组成部分的全球源头网络。不幸的是，凭借全球供应链的遥远性质，确保其中发现的产品和组件来自道德生产商可能会非常困难。没有企业希望在全球另一端找出他们的小部件制造商正在使用奴隶或童工中的原材料 - 那么大数据在哪里？Made in a Free Worldhas created software that helps businesses identify potential problem areas in their supply chains as well as producers or suppliers that are known to behave unethically.

What else can be done?

Are you intrigued by the world of data analytics and algorithms? There’s an almost-endless variety of problems and improvements that can be addressed through data collection and analysis. If this field has piqued your interest, you’ll want to learn more about some in-demand roles in this exciting new field. Learn more about the opportunities that could be in your future in our article, “6 Big Data Jobs That Are in Big Demand。”